Tony Fawcett’s expert tips for winter pruning roses and garden colour

It’s rose pruning time, but if nerves are holding you back, never fear — here’s all the tips you need, plus some ideas to add colour to a winter garden.

I’VE got to be frank, I hate pruning roses.

I inevitably end up with hands like bleeding, butchered lumps of meat — because equally, I hate wearing gloves.

Yet over years of gardening I have learnt through brutal experience that rose pruning and gloves are vital, at least if you want masses of blousily beautiful blooms to “ooh” and “aah” over come warmer days.

So this week I’ll be donning gloves, because it’s now prime rose pruning time.

Some newer gardeners panic at the mention of the P word. They shouldn’t. Roses are some of the hardiest critters. They bounce back from even the harshest hacking.

Yet prune them well and they bloom magnificently.

You can be super scientific to produce show blooms, or obey a few basic rules to produce perfectly acceptable roses.

For starters, prune all types of roses of spindly, old or diseased growth and branches that are growing inward. Cut out dead, sickly and overly woody branches from the base (use a pruning saw for larger ones), leaving younger, more vigorous basal shoots that are growing up.

Importantly, don’t mistake suckers, which grow up from under a rose’s graft (the bulging bit at the base of the plant), for these basal shoots. These need to go. Basal shoots are the ones that will produce the best roses.

The idea is to thin out older wood.

With bush-type roses, reduce foliage by a third, opening up the centre to allow good air movement.

Make your cuts just above a bud and sloping away from the bud. With standard roses, cut back 25 to 50 per cent of growth coming from the graft at the top of the stem.

With climbing roses, eliminate a quarter of older canes each year to encourage new growth — and prune back side shoots so two buds remain. Coaxing the canes of climbing roses to grow horizontally, perhaps along a wire, encourages heavier flowering.

With weeping standards, remove older canes and prune to an upward-facing bud. Groundcover roses, such as hardy FlowerCarpets, should be slashed back by two-thirds, using hedge-clippers or a line-trimmer.

Single-flowering spring roses are best pruned immediately after they have finished flowering.

The beauty of rose pruning is that it’s not a precise science. The “experts” all have their preferred methods.

Colour in: Senetti Magic Blue. Picture: Oasis

Do enough to invigorate new growth in the rose and you won’t go far wrong.

If you yearn for greater understanding of rose care, join the Rose Society of Victoria (rosesociety vic.org.au). What their experts don’t know about roses isn’t worth knowing.

WHAT’S NEW

LOOKING for some dazzle to brighten your late-winter garden?

Worth considering are some interesting new colours hitting nursery shelves in a range of senetti.

If you’re wondering about the senetti name, they are basically a revamp and reclassification of the old flashy-flowered and daisy-like cinerarias. The new colours are a soft mauve and salmon called Magic Salmon, and a more traditional darker mauve-blue and white bloom, Magic Blue. They are still vivid, yet a sensual change from some of the harsher colours of the past.

Bred by the giant Japanese company Suntory for mass blooming during cooler months, it’s not uncommon for an average size nursery pot of them to have up to 200 flowers on a single plant. Cutting back spent blooms encourages new flushes. Once established they will bloom happily through spring and well into summer. From Oasis, they’re right for growing in large pots.

WHAT TO DO THIS WEEK

DIVIDE rhubarb crowns to create new plants, fertilising new ground well with manure.

SPRAY nectarine and peach trees with a copper fungicide product to prevent foliage-deforming leaf curl in spring.

CONTINUE planting broad beans, cabbage, garlic, Jerusalem artichoke, lettuce, onions, parsnip, peas, radish and shallots.